Ducks show growth, ‘resilience’ to even series against Oilers

EDMONTON -- For a young team, the Anaheim Ducks showed a lot of maturity in winning Game 2 of the Western Conference First Round against the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday. 

Anaheim coughed up a two-goal, second-period lead and still managed to win 6-4 and tie the best-of-7 series 1-1. Game 3 is at the Honda Center in Anaheim on Friday (10 p.m. ET; HBO MAX, Victory+, truTV, TNT, KCOP-13, SN, TVAS, CBC).

“I think it comes down to skill, (Jacob Trouba) said in the past we were young and numb a little bit,” Ducks goalie Lukas Dostal said. “We always have belief. We have so many comebacks in the third period this year and so we know we can just keep going. I think we’ve shown the whole year we’re basically never out of games, so I think we’ve shown our resilience.” 

Lesser teams might have folded after seeing a 4-2 lead evaporate on the road against an experienced playoff team like the Oilers.

Edmonton scored with 2:12 left in the second period and then at 13:51 of the third, getting goals from Zach Hyman and Josh Samanski to seemingly pull the game out of the fire. 

Yet, the Ducks kept pushing and Cutter Gauthier found a loose puck in front off a fortunate bounce and lifted the go-ahead goal in past Oilers goalie Connor Ingram to restore the lead at 15:08 of the third.

Ryan Poehling added an empty-net goal with Ingram on the bench for an extra attacker at 18:50. 

“I think you’ve seen it all season long where we have that resilience and that confidence in this locker room that we’re never out of a single game,” said Gauthier, who scored two goals and had an assist in the win. “Last game we were able to come back and tonight we had the lead. It was fun playing with the lead a little bit, after being down (in Game 1) and we’re happy the guys were able to secure the ‘W’ tonight.”

Anaheim’s exploits playing from behind during the regular season are well documented. The Ducks had 26 comeback wins, which was tied with the Montreal Canadiens for the most in the League. Of those wins, 17 were from a goal down, nine were from two goals down and 12 came in the third period. 

They also led the NHL with 21 wins when trailing first, which is what happened when Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl scored his first of the playoffs at 8:58 of the first period, banking in a centering pass off the skate of defenseman Drew Helleson, who was playing in place of the injured Radko Gudas. 

Anaheim responded with the next three goals: Gauthier’s first playoff goal at 12:48 on the power play, Jacob Trouba with an even-strength goal at 2:44 of the second period and Alex Killorn with a power-play goal at 5:35. 

Edmonton cut the lead to 3-2 with a goal from defenseman Connor Murphy at 11:46, but when Poehling scored short-handed at 15:50 off a turnover by Oilers forward Connor McDavid, it appeared Anaheim was well on its way to its first playoff win since 2017, when the Ducks reached the conference final before losing in six games to the Nashville Predators.

However, with a young team, at times you have to ride the waves. 

“We’ve had some really good stretches there (in the regular season) where we’re really excited as a team and we’ve done some pretty special things as far as coming back, stretch runs where we’ve had some good runs,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said. “But we’ve also got our attention handed to us down the stretch and maybe that was a thing that may have woken us up. At the same time, we did lose a lot of close games at the end but we’re in every game and we have some depth on our team and we’re comfortable with anybody on the ice against any opponent being on the ice. 

“That’s a comfort that you like to have and tonight everybody contributed.”

Once the Oilers tied the game and the building erupted, momentum was back in Edmonton’s favor. 

That was until Anaheim took advantage of an offensive zone face-off after an icing call when Edmonton defenseman Mattias Ekholm flipped the puck down the ice. Leo Carlsson won the face-off, Troy Terry got the puck to the net and Gauthier buried it after it bounced to him. 

“That’s kind of been the way we’ve been the entire year,” Killorn said. “It’s stressful playing that way. I think we’re getting used to it, but I think we’d like to be a little bit better with the lead and hold on to some of those leads. But the resiliency in this group is pretty phenomenal.”

Gauthier, who was held pointless in the series opener after leading Anaheim with 41 goals and 69 points in the regular season, was in the right place at the right time as Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard attempted to clear Terry's rebound in front, but the puck bounced off Draisaitl’s skate and right to the Ducks forward at the bottom of the left circle.

Call it a fair trade for Draisaitl’s fortunate bounce in the first. 

“It was a great face-off play,” Gauthier said. “Leo raked it back and Troy made a great play on the net, and I tried to get a little loose and I was able to put it into an empty net.” 

The goal helped erase the disappointment of giving up a 3-2 lead in the third period of a 4-3 loss in Game 1. With the win, the Ducks have wrestled home-ice advantage away from the Oilers. 

“I think Game 1 we kind of sat back a little bit,” Killorn said. “No one was sitting back today. I think that’s why we ended up getting that goal with Cutter. It was a better third period for us, compared to Game 1. We’re going to learn as we go on here and continue to get better.”